Drink South African wines!
South Africa’s wine industry is in trouble. Even before the arrival of the coronavirus and its accompanying lockdowns, the industry was dealing with multiple challenges: extended droughts, wildfires and climate change impacts; stagnant or falling domestic wine consumption; unsustainably low grape prices; and serious socio-economic pressures including land invasions, violent crime, and a too-slow transformation of the industry towards equity and social inclusion for disadvantaged workers.
Then came Covid-19. In March 2020 the national government imposed a strict lockdown which included (uniquely, I believe) a ban on all sales of alcohol, including wine exports. The results were felt immediately.
On the one hand, alcohol-related trauma admissions to South African hospitals dropped dramatically, which helped the public health care system prepare for the anticipated Covid-19 onslaught. On the other hand, wine farms, wineries, restaurants and bars all suffered precipitous declines in revenue, with several closing for good. The wine industry was especially hard hit: Some 290,000 people are directly employed in the country’s wine industry, and many workers were suddenly laid off or furloughed without pay. The economic impacts rippled out to many more people.
On June 1, the government lifted the alcohol sales ban, only to reinstate it in mid July amid soaring rates of Covid-19 infection. It’s been in place ever since (although wine exports were allowed to continue). As a Wines of South Africa (WOSA) spokesperson has said, “For every week that we are not able to able to sell wine locally, the industry loses roughly R300 million [CDN$23 million]. With the initial lockdown, we estimated that up to 80 wineries could have to close their doors.” With the renewed sales ban, even more wineries could fail. The resulting socio-economic impacts will be grim indeed for an industry and workers already in a precarious situation.
What can you do to help? Drink more South African wine! Here in Canada, the selection of available wines from South Africa is spotty at best across the provinces, but there are certainly good buys to be had. Here in British Columbia, the BC Liquor Stores selection is frankly uninspiring, but some private wine shops have more interesting wines on offer from South Africa. Do explore.
I encourage you to get out there and buy South African wine, as I’ve been doing. It is the best way you can support the industry through these challenging times. And who knows, perhaps the BCLDB will notice the resulting uptick in interest in this category and improve their selection accordingly? We can only hope.
